1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a point of law search system and method using interactive legal databases, particularly interactive online legal databases. More specifically, the invention relates to a point of law search system and method that presents search results that pinpoint the location of a point of law in a retrieved document.
2. Related Art
“Headnote” is used herein to refer to a point of law identified by an editor in the body of a caselaw document; the points of law are reproduced at the top of the case so that researchers can easily determine what the case is about.
Interactive databases, and particularly interactive online legal databases, commonly have a “more like select text” feature that allows a user to search for additional cases based on text selected by a user in a case identified by the user as being of relevance to the user's research. A user can achieve similar search results by using the text of a headnote in a search request. However, a conventional “more like select text” or headnote search does little or nothing to point the user to the applicable point of law discussion within a document in an answer set.
It is to the solution of these and other problems that the present invention is directed.